fairytales and crazy people who look "normal"

[miriam_e]

Normally I am very optimistic about the human race. We are amazing creatures. Each generation is smarter than the last and we are becoming a more moral and peaceful species. And then something happens to make me wonder if we have any hope at all.

This morning I was visited by two nice old ladies who drove here to bring the word of the lord to me. They looked normal but by any rational standard they were completely insane -- utterly divorced from reality. They happily held completely contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously without any inkling that something was wrong. I swear they didn't hear a word I said, because of course I would have been an emissary of the devil sent to try their faith.

These complete whack-jobs believed that before the flood people lived to an age of 900 years, that all life in the universe was created just several thousand years ago and the fossils are a cunning lie by god to trick us, that the mythical flood was the result of incredible masses of water, being held up high in the air by magic, dropped at god's command. They believe in the absolute word of the bible and that it holds no errors. They believe that being gay is unnatural despite it being a feature of every species on the planet. That it is alright to enslave other people, that women should be the servants of men, that conducting campaigns of mass murder upon those who believe in a different god is okay, that witches (you should kill them) and ghosts exist, and that you should be good to your neighbor. Stark staring mad!

What is it with some humans and fairytales? The weirder, the crazier, the more harebrained the idea, the stronger the compulsion to believe in it. It makes me incredibly sad that such delusion persists and is so actively cultivated.

Absolute lunacy!

Comments

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

We all know Jesus got violent at times (what with the whole trashing of the temple thing); but I suppose that is an indicator of the whole Jesus was human thing (I haven't come across or remember the slavery point that you've made in my readings, I should go through things again when I have time, try and find it).

This gets back to the whole question of Jesus's divinity: there's three schools of thought: Jesus was completely human, human with divinity, completely divine. I think the latter option is the least plausible one, based on what we know and what Jesus said. But I don't know for sure. Either remaining option makes sense. I guess this and the whole resurrection thing are truly matters of faith.

I agree that the whole "He died for our sins" thing makes little sense. I actually tried and came up with a reasonable interpretation for what this actually meant, but I promptly forgot it!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I read much of the bible (I used to argue with religious friends all the time when I was a tiresome kid). It was in a part where a Roman centurion comes to Jesus to ask him to help his favorite slave get better. Jesus applauds the slaveowner. Not a peep about how owning people was not right. Nothing about how he should set him free. He had a perfect opportunity, but failed to say anything. Clearly he didn't see anything wrong with owning other people. It isn't surprising though. It was perfectly normal for people to own other people back then.

I'd always wondered about that peculiar bit of nonsense -- Jesus dying for our sins. Sins are not transferable currency. How can any person die for another's sins. It doesn't make any sense at all. And then I read the Why Won't God Heal Amputees (http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com) site by brilliant computer science teacher Marshall Brain (he also began the HowStuffWorks website). Superb stuff! He points out that the dying for sins is actually about human sacrifice. When someone does something bad for something they need to kill a calf or a goat or a pigeon or something as an offering to the god. For lots of sin by lots of people you need to kill something really important, like god's own son. The idea is very screwy but has a kind of sick and pathetic logic attached to it.

Just occurred to me that the Why Won't God Heal Amputees (http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com) site also refers to the centurion with the slave incident.

Do have a read of the site. The care and logic is impeccable.

One of my favorite pieces there is where he points out that the term "atheist" is pretty-much meaningless:

Do you believe in Leprechauns? Probably not, because Leprechauns are imaginary. There is no actual evidence for the existence of Leprechauns. Yes, there are lots of books, movies and fairy tales dealing with Leprechauns. People talk about Leprechauns all the time. Leprechauns even have a popular brand of breakfast cereal. But that does not mean that Leprechauns exist.

We know that Leprechauns are imaginary. Why? Because there is no evidence for their existence. Despite all the publicity Leprechauns get, normal people dismiss storybook creatures like Leprechauns as myths, and rightly so.

If you do not believe in Leprechauns, what are you? Are you an aleprechaunist? Of course not. You are normal. People who do not believe in Leprechauns are completely normal.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

This is interesting -- I know this story well (obviously only from Matthew). Trying to look for the exact passage again, I found that Matthew says servant, while Luke says slave (got this from here). Servant can imply paid employment, while slave obviously does not.

Which is the most accurate? It looks like there's more discrepancy reported in the event, though. It may be necessary to consider the question that what is he interpretation inherent in the translation of the original texts?

The scapegoat idea was the explanation that was offered to me when I was younger, but it still doesn't make much sense.

I will have a close look at that site: it looks very interesting. But the implication that "leprechauns are imaginary", that is, they do not exist, because there is no evidence for their existence, worries me. It is more accurate to say that "since we have no evidence that leprechauns exist, we cannot conclude that leprechauns exist or not".

Say I tell you I have a red apple in my fridge. You have no evidence that I have a red apple in my fridge; I could be telling you the truth or I could be lying to you. This does not mean that the red apple does not exist in my fridge. You could come and check my fridge and then you would know for sure one way or the other; you would posess the evidence you need to verify the statement. But without posessing the evidence, you cannot conclude the verity or otherwise of my statement.

In a roundabout way, this expresses the concept of falsifiability. If you cannot obtain the necessary evidence you need to prove a hypothesis (in the above case, that a red apple exists in my fridge), that hypothesis is not provable (according to the scientific method).

(I love discussing stuff like this, especially when I actually feel like I have the mental faculties to do so; sometimes I do not.)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I was listening to a talk today about Godel and I couldn't help feeling that some of what was said is taken too much to absolutes. Some things that a philosopher considers unsolvable are basic tools for ordinary, down-to-earth engineers. For instance the paradox "This is untrue." Philosophers throw up their hands and say it is unsolvable, and I have a feeling that it was part of Godel's theorem of incompleteness.

The funny thing is that engineers use this concept all the time. You couldn't build a normal computer without it, or a telephone or even an electric doorbell. It is far from insoluble when you adopt a real-world, sensible view. You simply let the states flip-flop back and forth and you have an astable oscillator. Another form of the same thing is the basis for computer static RAM and the registers in a CPU.

Similarly the problem of whether leprechauns exist or not isn't the problem it first seems. Do leprechauns conflict with the real world? They use magic, purport to grant wishes, can turn invisible, live only in Ireland, and are tiny -- smaller than a newborn baby. Taken on the whole we can safely say leprechauns don't exist.

This isn't the same for your apple in the fridge. It doesn't contravene good sense so I can't use other factors to disprove it.

A god would violate a lot of logic and common sense. It is pretty clear it doesn't exist. :)

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Well, if we rephrase the original problem of leprechaun existence to add these extra assumptions, then the problem's answer becomes contingent on these assumptions being true, and if one of these assumptions is false, this collapses the whole problem to being false. We must actually prove all or disprove one of these assumptions however to still return a definitive answer. We can certainly say that a true answer to the leprechaun problem is certainly improbable (and possibly even estimate these probabilities), but we cannot definitively say that is is impossible without actually performing a proof.

When we consider the question of existence of a god, we know there are extra assumptions, but we do not know for sure what these assumptions are! It is certainly true that under some assumptions a god that adheres to those assumptions cannot exist, but those are the only circumstances that we can logically rule out. The presence of extra, unknown assumptions makes the God problem a little more difficult.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The point about probabilities or likelihood is not just an inconvenience though. It is central to the issue. There are very few things in the real world that we can be absolutely certain of, but the likelihood of pink flying elephants is so vanishingly small that it may be safely dismissed.

It is the same with the idea of a god.
I have entertained myself by writing a short science fiction story which assumes that a god does exist. It does so in a logical fashion that is consistent with all the known physical laws, but it doesn't change the fact that in reality the possibility of a god existing in that way or any other is so improbable as to be considered as good as impossible for all practical purposes.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

I don't think the analogy is so simple. We are talking about something that is completely external to our own experience and reality, so making deductions about this is not straightforward.

I don't see how the likelihood of the God problem being true is so minimal. It seems to me that it is just as likely that the God Problem is true than it is false.

In fact, I personally am a agnostic theist.

But now we are reaching into the realms of theology I haven't even fully considered myself. I am mulling over the consequences of an idea that involves parallel universes...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It is that very point, that it is completely external to our experience and reality, that makes it necessary to dismiss it.

There have been centuries of indoctrination that make people think that they should suspend critical thinking where a god is concerned, but that is a basic mistake. Under all other circumstances saying that something is so, but is unknowable because it is outside the universe just sounds absurd, but people have become accustomed to accepting it when talking about gods. Why? It doesn't make sense.

Here is a simple test: Someone tells you that the universe is supported on the backs of an infinite number of giant tortoises. You would dismiss this as so unlikely that it isn't worth considering. But it is the same as a god, in that although it is wildly improbable, in a philosophical sense it is impossible to absolutely disprove.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

I don't think we should suspend critical thinking in this case. I just don't think we can make judgements so easily.

But you have somewhat made my point, though: in a philosophical sense it is impossible to absolutely disprove.

That is essentially the view I hold :)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Ooops. I should have mentioned what the story was, in case you want to read it. It is called Grace and is in 2 forms on my website at:
http://miriam-english.org/stories.html

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Neat story. :)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

By the way, I am a mathematician by heart, so I cannot avoid but take certain things to absolutes ;)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I envy you your mathematician's heart (as you know).
I lean towards considering myself an engineer so I thrive on shades of grey. :)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

By the way, you might be interested in the form in which I have the bible. I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg as the King James version. I just looked online and found that there are heaps more forms of the bible there now.
http://www.gutenberg.org
Because my copy is in raw text form it is very easy to load and search in my favorite text editor TextPad which has regular expression capability (http://www.textpad.com -- a truly brilliant program!)

I divided mine in 2 parts (old and new testament) and added contents lists at the beginning to make them easier to use. I can upload my copies to my website if you want them. They're about 3MB and 1MB.